British World War II veteran Herbert Beddows, 92, who served with three commandos and landed on Sword Beach on June 6, 1944, poses on the beach front outside Colleville-Montgomery, in northern France, on Wednesday. This week marks the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings

French teenagers, who are part of a second world war re-enactment group, relax on the promenade of Arromanche next to Gold beach, as preparations for the 70th anniversary of D-day are finalised on Monday in Bayeux, France

German Chancellor Angela Merkel tours the exhibition: “The First World War, 1914-1918″ (“Der Erster Weltkrieg, 1914-1918″) on its official opening at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, Germany

A woman carries bags in a destroyed neighbourhood of the Old City of Homs, some 162km north of the capital Damascus. Syrians have been streaming back into the ruins of the Old City of Homs since opposition forces pulled out

Second world war veterans attend a ceremony on the eve of Victory Day in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine. Ukraine, along with the Commonwealth of Independent States, celebrates victory over Nazi Germany on Friday.

A Syrian man evacuates a child found in the rubble of a building reportedly hit by an explosives-filled barrel dropped by a government forces helicopter in Aleppo. Iran’s foreign minister that Tehran is “ready to help any logical attempts” to end the Syrian conflict, during a visit by UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.

Women in Afghanistan line up to have their picture taken at a school in Kabul, Afghanistan to register for presidential elections. Last-minute registration of voters continues despite more than 21 million voter registration cards having been issued while only roughly 12 million Afghans are eligible to vote. The discrepancy is the result of repeated registrations since the first round of elections in Afghanistan in 2004.

Members of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland rehearse for a re-burial ceremony in Loos British Cemetery in Loos-en-Gohelle, France. Twenty British soldiers will be re-interred almost 100 years after they were killed in action during the battle of Loos in 1915

An Afghan balloon seller walks along a street in Kabul. About 9m Afghans, or 36% of the population, are living in ‘absolute poverty’ while another 37% t live barely above the poverty line, according to a UN report.

Afghan refugee, laiba Hazrat, 6, in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. For more than three decades, Pakistan has been home to one of the world’s largest refugee communities of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have fled the wars and fighting in their country.